Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Racist: Jews Invented ‘Gay’ to Oppress Whites

Remember that tiny town in North Dakota where white supremacist Craig Paul Cobb is trying to take it over and turn it into a haven for racists and neo-Nazis? He went on the David Pakman radio show and declared that the term “gay” was invented by the Jews to oppress white people.

“When you say I’m wanted in Canada, that’s for a so-called ‘hate crime,’” Craig Paul Cobb told radio host David Pakman. “And just like ‘gay’ and so many other terms, these are terms devised by Jews to oppress whites.”…

He also admitted to Pakman that he had no proof to back up his statement, prompting Pakman to respond, “That’s what I figured.”

Comments

Hate list: Gays, Jews, blacks, and probably Asians, women ( I would have said women smarter than Cobb but that was redundant), libruls, feriners, and really anyone not in complete agreement with his ideals. Lovely. Why would anyone give this loser airtime?

“The Jew is using The Black as muscle against you. And you are left there helpless. Well, what are you going to do about it, Whitey? Just sit there? Of course not! You are going to join with us.”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/quotes

This nutter’s weird evidence-free pseudo-etymology got me to wondering just when and why gay become a synonym for homosexual. I presumed it was recent, but beyond that, had no idea.

My favorite Internets etymology resource, The Online Etymology Dictionary, has a rather long entry on the subject, which I have abbreviated (by, in part, leaving out the quotes / citations (i.e., written evidence)):

gay (adj.)
…
Slang meaning “homosexual” (adj.) begins to appear in psychological writing late 1940s, evidently picked up from gay slang and not always easily distinguished from the older sense:
…
The association with (male) homosexuality likely got a boost from the term gay cat, used as far back as 1893 in American English for “young hobo,” one who is new on the road, also one who sometimes does jobs.
…
Gay cats were severely and cruelly abused by “real” tramps and bums, who considered them “an inferior order of beings who begs of and otherwise preys upon the bum …, but some accounts report certain older tramps would dominate a gay cat and employ him as a sort of slave. …
The “Dictionary of American Slang” reports that gay (adj.) was used by homosexuals, among themselves, in this sense since at least 1920.
…Gay as a noun meaning “a (usually male) homosexual” is attested from 1971… As a slang word meaning “bad, inferior, undesirable,” from 2000.

blf, thanks for the extensive notes. I’ll add that I have heard many homophobes complain bitterly about how we gays “appropriated” the word to refer to ourselves positively, but I’ve never heard one complain about the more recent pejorative use.

The pejorative use consciously means homosexual. I once corrected some teenagers who were using “gay” that way … and they responded by changing their expression to, “Oh, that’s so homosexual.”

So the Joos are responsible for all the world’s gayness as well as all the world’s wars? Couldn’t they have coordinated those two campaigns to, I dunno, make the hardware match the exterior decor or something? Or was it hard enough just to get all the fabulous dress uniforms?